Posted by me last Friday on this blog was an advance announcement of an essay by Paul Collins in today’s New York Times Book Review section, in which he revealed the identity of the hitherto unknown author of The Notting Hill Mystery, described as the world’s first detective novel. The book version was published in 1865, but before that, the novel had appeared in serialized form in Once a Week magazine, beginning with the November 29, 1862, issue.

The identification of “Charles Felix” as Mr. Charles Warren Adams seems solid enough. It’s the characterization of The Notting Hill Mystery as the first detective novel that no longer is valid. When I reported the news on Yahoo’s FictionMags group, I received the following reply from well-known science fiction writer and historian Brian Stableford:

“The ‘world’s first detective novel’ was Jean Diable by Paul Féval, published as a serial in Le Siècle between August 1 and November 20, 1862, and reprinted in book form by Dentu in 1863. An English translation, as John Devil, was published by Black Coat Press in 2004.

“It features the (anachronistic) Scotland Yard detective Gregory Temple’s sustained attempt to pin a series of murders on the eponymous archvillain — ­a project eventually compromised by the insistence of Féval’s editor, presumably in response to reader demand, that, as the suspect was French and the detective English, the latter could not be allowed to triumph.”

My reply, somewhat shortened, was: Just to sure, if I may ask — definitions may be important here. Even though Jean Diable had a character who was a detective, it sounds as though the novel may have been a thriller rather than a detective story. The distinction may be more important to some than to others, I know.

Brian’s response:

“The only definitional quibble that could arise with respect to Jean Diable is that because it was a feuilleton it had to be made up as Féval went along, without his knowing how long it would run and always remaining vulnerable to editorial diktat, and had to be all things to all readers — effectively, a kind of soap opera, with multiple narrative threads and romance as well as criminal conspiracies.

“In this instance, as in many others, Féval was obviously instructed to change the intended ending, so the extant version ultimately makes no sense, unless you read it very carefully indeed (see my afterword to the Black Coat Press edition).

“Gregory Temple is, however, a detective in every sense of the word, with an analytical method for solving crimes based on motive, opportunity and physical evidence (a method he is foolish enough to publish, thus giving the villain a guide-book as to how to frame someone else for his crimes).

“Having been almost conclusively fooled, Temple notices one small detail out of place (a forged postmark, revealed by inspection with a magnifying-glass) and is thus able to cut through the web of deception and identify the real guilty party.

“Unfortunately, Féval was obviously told that the readers liked the villain far better than the detective, so Temple isn’t allowed to obtain a conviction in the eventual trial. The reader knows from the start who the real guilty party is (although the text tries to backtrack on that), so it’s more like Columbo than Agatha Christie, but it’s definitely a detective story.”

[UPDATE] 01-10-11. I’ve been away from the computer most of the day, and I’m still in the process of going through the email this post has brought forth. Many of these emails, as well as the comments that have already been left, plus suggestions I have have seen elsewhere, have included other books that ought be be in the running as “the world’s first detective novel.”

On the Yahoo FictionMags list, for example, Doug Greene said (and this is a very small excerpt from a longer post), “Many of the sensation novels from the early 1860’s come close to detection. A strong argument can be made that Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s The Trail of the Serpent (1861) is a detective story — perhaps the first full-length one.”

Last October on this blog, in the midst of a flurry of lists of favorite and significant books from various eras, David Vineyard submitted “100 Important Books From Before the Golden Age,” a list of titles not all of which were intended to be Detective Novels, but each of which he felt were progenitors of the form in one way or another. It’s very much worth your going back to re-read it.

While it’s awfully fun to try, attempts to name the first of almost anything historically are almost always doomed to failure, not in terms of obtaining universal agreement. I’m not convinced that anyone can say that any one book is a detective novel, and this other one, which came before it, is not, even if you have a definition everyone agrees with, an event which I suggest is next to impossible in and of itself.

Literary history proceeds in incremental fashion, building on what came before, not quantum jumps.

[UPDATE #2.] 01-11-11. I received the following email from Paul Collins before I added the update above, but after he had seen Brian Stableford’s comments about Jean Diable, by Paul Féval:

Dear Steve:

Many thanks for the links, and for the kind attention to the article!

I first became interested in tracing The Notting Hill Mystery last spring, after a footnote in the OUP edition of The Moonstone got me curious about the mysterious Charles Felix.

I am, perhaps, too quick to accept Symons’ snub of Féval, who seemed to regard Féval as a writer of “criminal romances.” Mr. Stableford’s perspective on this is certainly of interest, and I do hope that he may note Féval’s work in a letter to the editors.

If I may hazard one potential line of inquiry: regardless of how these things are categorized, if Féval and Adams were indeed published just three months apart, that may be suggestive. Adams is also known to lived in France in the early 1860s, so perhaps he was reading Féval. Or maybe it was “in the air” — interesting timing, in any case!

Best,

Paul

21 Responses to “UPDATE — THE NOTTING HILL MYSTERY Is Not the World’s First Detective Novel.”

Geeze, Steve, thanks for letting me know NOTTING HILL MYSTERY was NOT the first detective novel AFTER I quickly went and ordered a copy from abebooks. Now I’ll have to note the NY Times Book Review article that it really is the second detective novel. I have spent thousands based on MYSTERY FILE recommendations. This is one of the few misfires.

Fascinating. Thanks, Steve, for asking the question re definition of detective story. There does seem to be a collision of genres in this period as the detective form was emerging (e.g., romances; thrillers; sensation work of Collins, Braddon, et al.). Sounds like we should do something in _Clues_ on this.

Who did it first tends to be impossible to answer since most things, even entertainment, tend to evolve.

I have enjoyed listening to people argue who was first with the comic strip, the television, the movie (it was not Edison), the automobile, electricity, etc. I am sure people argue over who was the first detective in reality.

Walker Martin, have you considered your purchase of NOTTING HILL MYSTERY an important step in the evolution of the mystery and fictional detective?

There were also countless mystery, crime and detective short stories of these years, which complicates the picture.

Poe’s short stories of the 1840’s, and Gaboriau’s novels of the 1860’s, strongly resemble later detective fiction, such as Agatha Christie, Erle Stanley Gardner et al. Poe and Gaboriau are the “best” all-around candidates for ancestors.
Others, such as Charles Felix, seem more like cousins than ancestors of later Detective Fiction. Love Felix’s multi-media: floor plans, documents, etc.

By the way, despite the NY Times article, floor plans re-emerge in Anna Katherine Green in the 1870’s, and even Doyle. No need to wait for the 1920’s!

“Ellen Davitt (1812-1879) – also wrote for Australian Journal, her 1865 serial ‘Force and Fraud’ being the first known Australian mystery novel. It begins with a murder and ends with its solution, with red herrings, blackmail, and a dramatic court scene in between.”

What about the Chinese Maze Murders, from 16th Century Chinese crime & mystery stories? The Dee Goong An has a detective,Judge Dee. These were translated by Robert Van Gulik and are out of print at the moment. My daughter is reading them for World Civilization Class in 9th Grade. I have a copy.

A very good question, although (as far as I know) THE CHINESE MAZE MURDERS was written by Van Gulik himself in 1950 or so, based on old Chinese tales. His first book about Judge Dee, however, was a translation of Di Gong An, as you say, a book written in the 1700s. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say abut it:

“The Judge Dee character is based on the historical figure Di Renjie (c. 630–c. 700), magistrate and statesman of the Tang court. During the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) in China, a “folk novel” was written set in former times, but filled with anachronisms. Van Gulik found in the 18th century Di Gong An ( lit. “Cases of Judge Dee”) an original tale dealing with three cases simultaneously, and, which was unusual among Chinese mystery tales, a plot that for the most part lacked an overbearing supernatural element which could alienate Western readers. He translated it into English and had it published under the title Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee.”

Van Gulik then wrote several books about Judge Dee on his own, including MAZE.

But regarding THE CASES OF JUDGE DEE, here’s a quibble: Granted that they were detective stories, most sources suggest that the book may be a collection of short stories, not a novel. Wikipedia again:

“There are three cases in this book. The first might be called The Double Murder at Dawn. The case describes the hazardous life of the traveling silk merchant and the murder which is committed to gain wealth.

“The second is The Strange Corpse which takes place in a small village, a crime of passion which proves hard to solve. The criminal is a very determined woman.

“The third case The Poisoned Bride contains the murder of the daughter of a local scholar who marries the son of the former administrator of the district. This case contains a surprising twist in its solution.

“All three cases are solved by Judge Dee, the district magistrate – Detective, prosecutor, judge, and jury all wrapped up into one person.”

On the other hand, here’s what Barzun and Taylor have to say in Catalogue of Crime:

“Dee Goong An is the genuine article, dating from the 18th century and barely modified by the translator to make it intelligible today. Like his modern fictions, it adroitly intertwines three plots and shows the judge and his aides in their now familiar guise. The introduction and notes (including Chinese ideograms for the skeptical) are as entertaining as the tale, once the reader has become a Dee-votee.”

I traced the evolution of the “roman judiciare,” the detective novel, in the Introduction to my Black Coat Press 2009 translation of MONSIEUR LECOQ. The forty-year process is detailed, citing French and English sources. (As you know, Gaboriau was the secretary and sometimes ghost writer for Paul Feval.)

Thank you for the reply. There is one thing I’d like to clarify about Fortune du Boisgobey, who continued the Lecoq series after the death of Emile Gaboriau. Almost everywhere on the internet, Wikipedia and elsewhere, it is claimed that du Boisgobey was a pseudonym.

That’s patently not true. The American Consul to France, General Charles Meredith Reed,appointed for services to the Union during the Civil War, knew him well, was a member with him of a dinner/conversation club. In his autobiography, “The Spartans of Paris, Leaves from my Autobiography,” General Reed stated that the misinformation had been published in French newspapers the day after du Boisgobey’s death.

He goes to some length to detail du Boisbobey’s autobiography, debunking the pseudonym misinformation. I included all this information in the Introduction to the translation of LE BAC (THE FERRY MYSTERY -Distinction Press, 2010). I think THE FERRY MYSTERY may be the only recent translation of that work, very popular in the 19th century, but perhaps there are others I don’t know about.

In French literature, at least, Paul Féval is the definitely the genre’s first and greatest precursor. Emile Gaboriau was, in fact, Féval’s secretary and all-purpose amanuensis, before he struck out on his own.

Féval’s Gregory Temple of Scotland Yard is the first fictional professional detective (as opposed to amateur) that I know of. He collects clues, analyzes them, and even has an incident room with a big blackboard with a list of all the clues, the suspects, etc on it.

Had Féval been more interested in arguing on the side of the Law, Temple could have become Lecoq before Lecoq, but Féval was more interested in criminals. He was a lawyer-turned-writer and, in the time of Vidocq (who inspired Poe’s Dupin), he probably had little respect or confidence in the Law.

So instead, Féval turned to writing sagas about criminals, and followed JOHN DEVIL with the 7-volume BLACK COATS saga (also translated and annotated by Mr Stableford for Black Coat Press), which is a magnificent achievement in the history of criminal literature, unmatched to this day by anyone. Dickens meets Mario Puzo, if you will.

Interestingly enough, one of the Black Coats volumes, HEART OF STEEL, features the first fictional Investigating/Examining Magistrate, young Remy d’Arx, who is intent on exposing and defeating the criminal conspiracy. D’Arx is an excellent prototype for many subsequent judge/magistrate heroes, now a mainstay of the genre.

In THE VAMPIRE COUNTESS, which is both fantasy and mystery (and also available from Black Coat Press translated by Mr Stableford), Féval introduces yet another archetypal hero: Jean-Pierre Séverin, responsible for the Paris Morgue (and Napoleon’s former sword master) who takes it upon himself to investigate corpses whose deaths seem mysterious or somehow unnatural. Part forensic analyst, part swashbuckler, Séverin is yet a surprisingly modern character.

Returning to JOHN DEVIL, if Temple is the first fictional professional detective, one shouldn’t forget that his adversary, Henri de Belcamp, is likely the first sociopathic serial killer, long before Fantômas. At the same time, he is also the mastermind of a techno-thriller plot that would use cutting edge technology to spring Napoleon from St. Helens and redraw the map of the world. Tom Clancy isn’t far.

JOHN DEVIL is a prodigious accomplishment and truly one of the most ground-breaking novels in the history of popular literature.

I’ve just received my copy of JOHN DEVIL in the mail, and I think I’ve gotten my money’s worth. It’s 578 pages long, following by 70 or pages of notes and footnotes about the novel. Only problem is, I often get intimidated by long books like this! But tackle it I will, and Jean-Marc, thanks for letting us know more about what you’ve been doing at Black Coat Press. I imagine I’ll be back for second helpings before long!

Coming in late here I’ll keep it brief and resist any temptation to pontificate. Frankly, in this case I think we are to some extent splitting hairs — and pretty finely too.

In all fairness to Mr. Stableford (who has done Protean work in the field of French popular literature aside from being a damn fine writer himself) and to Jean-Marc (my publisher — Hi, JM), I think terminology is as important here as dates.

To begin with Braddon’s TRAIL OF THE SERPENT is closer to a traditional detective story than JOHN DEVIL, as is NOTTING HILL, but in all fairness, Gregory Temple is presented as a detective (anachronistically as Stableford notes — the Bow Street Runners were still at large at the period Feval has Scotland Yard up and running), and he does behave as one, but beyond that you can’t make much of a claim for JOHN DEVIL as a detective novel per se.

It certainly is a crime novel, and Temple may well be the first official detective in a novel, but I don’t think it is a detective novel as such. It takes more than a detective to make a detective novel (which is why I don’t think CRIME AND PUNSIHMENT is a detective novel per se either).

Braddon’s TRAIL comes much closer in my mind, and I’m not sure doesn’t have as good or better claim to the title than NOTTING HILL, but again this is awfully thin ice for anyone to be making a stand on.

I consider all three of the works in question to fall into that category where you have to take the writer’s intent into account. I don’t think Braddon, Feval, or Felix thought of themselves as writing a ‘detective novel’ in the same sense that Poe and Gaboriau both knew quite well they were doing something revolutionary.

In the western field Owen Wister is clearly the author of what everyone agrees is the first western novel for just that reason, because he consiously wrote a ‘western’ as opposed to the dime novels, Cooper’s Leatherstocking tales, or Frederick Remington’s JOHN ERSKINE OF YELLOWSTONE, all of which could make some claim to the title in the same sense these three books are detective novels.

I think that is what we have here, three instances of the birth pains of the detective novel as it would soon come into being, but the fact that none of the writers involved went on to develop them and expand on it leads me to categorize the three books as contributory (Feval has a strong claim as the first crime novelist however — especially in the field of organised crime), but not actual detective novels in the full sense we mean by the term. I’m not sure you don’t have to wait for Gaboriau and Lecoq (the name borrowed from Feval’s ‘les habits noirs’) for the first conscious detective novel.

As a professor once pointed out to me in a history class countless peoples found the ‘New World’ before Columbus, but it wasn’t until Columbus and Spain anyone did much about it. In literature, as in history, it isn’t enough to be first alone.

Here we have three fascinating early examples of the form in its infancy. Each contributed something to the end product as we know it today, and all three are well worth reading — but is any one of them the elusive ‘first detective novel?’

The not very satisfactory answer is — sort of, but not quite.

Perhaps the real problem is our own need to label something as the ‘first.’ What we have here are three missing links — but they are not what one wag once called the ‘onlie beggetor’ — merely cousins on the family tree.

They may be a bit closer to the real thing, but they have the same general realtionship to the genre as Sue’s MYSTERIES OF PARIS, Hugo’s LES MISERABLES, Godwin’s CALEB WILLIAMS, Bulwer-Lytton’s PELHAM, Dickens, and a few dozen others I could (and as Steve pointed out did) name.

If nothing else though they lay a clear trail for literary historians and supply further proof that the genre as we know it was struggling to be born.

But as any woman will tell you, labor pains, however vital to and closely related to birth they may be, are not the act itself, any more than a foundation is a house (I’ll limit myself to mangling two metaphors for now). I think that is the true relation of these works to the genre, shadows of things to come.

Note than in my somewhat long-winded post I did not label JOHN DEVIL a “detective novel”, merely limiting myself to observing that it featured the first professional (as opposed to amateur) detective, with clues, incident room, etc.

I agree that the author’s intent matters: Gaboriau was purposefully crafting a hero-based series while Féval was writing what we would call today a thriller with (pre-)Dickensian aspects. Gaboriau’s Lecoq is a “hero”; Féval kills off even his best characters rather casually.

That said, the chapters in JOHN DEVIL which show Gregory Temple going about his detection business with his magnifying class, etc. are certainly ground-breaking.

unrelated question here: I often see the name ‘Brian Freemantle’ mentioned on mysteryfile.com. Presumably a fiction author? Is he the same Freemantle who wrote “Gouzenko: The Untold Story”? a nonfiction book on the Gouzenko defection? Thanks

Oops, sorry. I had too many items in the air when I posted. The Freemantle book I’m asking about is called ‘KGB’ ISBN: 0030624584. Same inquiry: is this the same author referred to on this website in so many places?